5th Floor Common Room: Saturday Morning

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

Pippi is once again parked on the couch with her quilt.

To the eye, it looks like she's engaging in a little embroidery, but anybody who bothers to listen carefully will hear that she's actually studying for math.

Using her computer, a pair of headphones, and a CD of math music she got from Charlie before he left.

Naughty Number 9
School House Rock
Music & Lyrics: Bob Dorough
Performed by: Grady Tate

Number nine will put you on the spot.
Number nine will tie you up, oh, in a knot.
When you're tryin',
Multiplyin' by nine,
You might give it everything you've got
And still be stopped.
If you don't know some secret way you can check on,
You'll break your neck on
Naughty number nine.

Now the first thing to keep in mind,
When you're multiplyin' by nine
Is that it's one less than ten.
You see, nine is the same as ten minus one.
So you could multiply your number by ten,
And then subtract the number from the result,
And you'd get the same product
As if you'd multiplied by nine
And you knew it.

I mean, eight times nine is 80 minus eight,
And seven times nine is 70 minus seven, and six times nine is 60 minus six.
You could use those tricks.
'Cause you must have some secret way you can beat it,
Or else you'll meet it
With naughty number nine.

Of course, it doesn't hurt
To know the table of nines by memory.
It goes like this:
One times nine is nine, and two times nine is 18.
(Mean ol' number nine)
Three times nine is 27, and four times nine is 36.
Five times nine is 45, and six times nine is 54,
And seven times nine is 63.
Eight times nine is 72, and nine times nine is 81,
And ten times nine is 90.

Now the digit sum is always equal to nine.
I mean, if you add two and seven, the digits,
You get nine, the digit sum.
That's true of any product of nine.
If they don't add up, you've made a mistake.
'Cause you must have some secret way you can check it,
Or else you'll wreck it
With naughty, nasty, mean old number nine.

She probably wouldn't mind an interruption.

Comments

[suzotchka.livejournal.com]

"I have no idea," Ivanova shrugged. "But then again, if you knew Garibaldi you'd get it."

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

"Is that his first name or his last name?"

[suzotchka.livejournal.com]

"Last. Michael Garibaldi." Ivanova shook her head. "Sorry. What I call home is a military installation. We don't do first names much."

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

"It's much the same on my papa's ship." Pippi nodded as Daffy Duck sang about tripping it up and down.

"But they tended to go in for nicknames."

[suzotchka.livejournal.com]

"O RLY? Really? Like what?"

Ivanova found herself mouthing the words. She had definitely spent too much time with Garibaldi.

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

"You don't just call somebody by their name you have to add something to it... Like 'Gally the Fox' or 'Jock the Knife' or 'Goggle-Eye Gilbert' or 'Pirate Fabe'. Or, if they don't have a nick-name? You call them by their full name. Like 'Comus McCallie'."

[suzotchka.livejournal.com]

Ivanova snickered as she got a sudden mental image of life on the station if they swapped naming conventions. "Certainly more interesting than name and rank," she murmured. And made a mental note to call him Glass-Eye G'Kar next time she saw him.